If anyone had doubts about whether the political blocs installed in Catalonia during the process had become small, new data may help to convince them. After the municipal elections of 28-M the main pro-independence parties – ERC and Junts – have agreed on their own with the PSC more times than with each other.
Salvador Illa’s party emerged as the great winner of the municipal elections, both in votes (712,992 ballots, 23.72%, 160,270 more than Junts), and in absolute majorities (24 in total, seven more than ERC), as for the pacts reached after the elections. Here the socialists were clear from the beginning. “We will make an agreement with everyone except Vox”, pointed out sources from the apparatus on election night itself, when President Pere Aragonès had not yet made his “desperate” proposal, as they described it, for ERC and Junts to prioritize pro-independence pacts in town halls, as a first step to annealing the lost drive.
The PSC never believed that this was for real, because after the municipal elections of 2019 we already saw half a hundred pacts between the three parties, and already in the week after 28-M they began to close some local agreements with Together, but also with ERC. After agreeing with the post-convergents in Roses, Dosrius or Cunit, the agreements with ERC fell through in the deputations of Tarragona and Lleida.
“We have been generous with ERC and with Junts”, ironic socialist sources after verifying that, despite what has happened in Barcelona’s mayor’s office, pacts between some of these two pro-independence formations with the PSC have been more common than Between them. The data they expose shows it. Those from Illa have obtained 19 mayorships by agreeing with Junts and 9 with ERC; the republicans have won 19 mayorships thanks to agreements with the PSC, and only 8 with Junts, and the post-convergents have won 23 mayorships by agreeing with the socialists, and only 9 with ERC.
From the arithmetic it follows that the socialists have agreed more with Junts than with ERC.
In addition, there are pacts that the devil burdens them with, such as those made to unseat another member of the municipal government. The PSC and Junts have agreed to wrest mayorships from ERC such as Roses, Bisbal d’Empordà, Ametlla de Mar, Manlleu, Lliçà de Vall, Puigcerdà or Montgat. But the socialists have also repeated the trick with ERC to displace Junts from the councils of Tortosa, Manresa, Masquefa, Móra la Nova, Móra d’Ebre, Bescanó, Cabrils, Montblanc and Tàrrega.
Waiting to get back the jewel in the municipal crown, the Diputació de Barcelona, ??the scale of pacts such as those of the Tarragona and Lleida deputations with ERC is combined with other numbers that corroborate the municipal power of the PSC. The Socialists have won 129 mayoralties, including those of three of the four provincial capitals, which allows them to manage no less than 60% of the Catalan population.
These mayorships are far from those achieved by ERC (329) or Junts (338), but they are 40 more than those achieved in 2019. In addition, the PSC is also part of 48 other municipal governments, so that the municipal management socialist rises to almost 70% of the Catalan population.
Also, those from Salvador Illa have obtained three of the four provincial capitals (Barcelona, ??Lleida and Tarragona) and have even extended their domain to their traditional stronghold, the metropolitan area of ??Barcelona – 21 of the 36 towns that make it up , one more than in 2019–, with absolute majorities in Sabadell, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Cornellà de Llobregat, Sant Boi, Badia del Vallès or Sant Adrià del Besòs. Although in this area the socialists see with concern what happened in municipalities of the Baix Llobregat such as l’Hospitalet, Gavà and Viladecans, where the irruption of Vox has caused them to lose the absolute majority they had.
